Mainchance, the only homeless drop-in center in East Midtown Manhattan, closed permanently on June 30 after its city contract expired, ending more than 30 years of service to people experiencing homelessness in the neighborhood, according to City Limits.
The shutdown came after a fight across two mayoral administrations. Mayor Eric Adams’ administration tried to terminate Mainchance’s contract in early 2024 but was unsuccessful. The Department of Social Services under Mayor Zohran Mamdani then declined to renew it, letting the contract run out at the end of last month.
Clients who relied on the center at East 32nd Street between Park and Lexington Avenues for meals and a place to sleep are now being redirected to drop-in centers in Union Square, Hell’s Kitchen, and Kips Bay, according to City Limits. Those alternatives are already overcrowded. Judge Lynn Kotler, who presided over Mainchance’s legal challenge to stay open, said as much during a June 18 hearing. “I don’t think sending population to the drop-in center in Union Square, Hell’s Kitchen, or I believe in Kips Bay, drop-in centers that are already overcrowded, makes a lot of sense,” she said.
Kotler dismissed the challenge, writing that she saw no path toward keeping the center open. At the hearing she urged both sides to negotiate a settlement, possibly converting Mainchance into a Safe Haven, the lower-barrier shelter model the city says it prefers over drop-ins. Mainchance’s lawyer Marc Gross said DHS declined to engage in those talks and told the court there was no budget allocation to keep the center open past June.
East Midtown no longer has a homeless drop-in center. The Bellevue Men’s Intake Center on East 30th Street, the city’s nearby central intake shelter, also closed at that location earlier this year; the city is now in the process of relocating it to the East Village. Six elected officials sent a letter to the Mamdani administration this week asking it to reconsider the Mainchance decision, including Manhattan Councilmembers Harvey Epstein, Virginia Maloney, Gale Brewer, and Carl Wilson and state representatives Kristen Gonzalez and Keith Powers. “With the closure of the Bellevue Men’s Intake Center on East 30th Street earlier this year, the services provided by Mainchance fill a critical need for homeless New Yorkers,” they wrote. “It is the only homeless drop-in center located in East Midtown Manhattan.”
The Department of Homeless Services investigated complaints earlier this year that Mainchance turned people away, a potential violation of rules requiring drop-in centers to stay open around the clock. Mainchance denied the allegations. In court, city lawyers argued the administration had the legal right to let contracts expire and would rather invest resources in Safe Havens. A Department of Social Services spokesperson said in a statement that the agency will “ensure that all clients are connected to services, including nearby drop-in centers, and appropriate shelter placements,” and confirmed there are no plans to reverse the decision.
Mainchance CEO Brady Crain, whose legal effort to keep the center open Bushwick Daily covered in June, said the city kept changing its stated rationale for the closure. “It was three-card monte for Mainchance, because they kept on switching the reasons why they was closing us down,” he told City Limits.
Crain said the center’s clients are absorbing the cost of a dispute they had no part in. “I feel sorry for our customers because they’re being told with no control that they should start over again, and then just being transported to whatever is open,” he said. “In a horrible way, they are used to this. They’re used to being moved about without being told something.”
Crain added that repeated disruptions erode the trust homeless New Yorkers place in city services. “People took their time to come in and develop a relationship,” he said. “Again, it fails and they are back out on the street. So it’s hard for the homeless to believe anything.”
The Department of Social Services said it has halted referrals to the site and will station vans outside the center for at least the next week in case clients arrive looking for services.
